Food pantries that were flooded with new clients last year say demand just keeps growing as the recession keeps up, unemployment benefits run out and work hours dwindle.

"We've been running food pantries for 30 years, and we've never seen this kind of demand," said Larry Marsland, managing director of the Lower Cape Outreach Council, which operates eight food pantries from Harwich to Provincetown.

"People are spending every cent they have on bills and then coming to us for food because there's nothing left," he said. Marsland said the number of households using the pantries has climbed nearly 40 percent in one year's time.

"We got eight new families yesterday," she said Thursday. "People are already lined up outside the door" when it opens at 10 a.m.

The clientele at the Nam Vets Association of the Cape & Islands food pantry has swelled by 18 to 20 percent this year, and includes veterans newly returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, said Nancy Johnson, pantry co-chairwoman.

The veterans' food pantry in Hyannis — which, despite its name, serves all veterans — grew from fewer than 500 people served at this time last year to 618 this year, Johnson said.

"It's hard to keep up with it," she said.

The Falmouth Service Center had given out 25,893 bags of food by the end of September, 1,727 more than the year before, said director Brenda Swain.

"More families with children are seeking help," as well as senior citizens, she said.

"It's a different group of people asking for help now," said Catherine Driscoll, director of the Cape Cod Council of Churches' Hands of Hope food pantry in West Harwich.

And for many, one pantry isn't enough to fill the larder, especially if it is only open once a month, like Hands of Hope. "People are pretty much using every place they can," Driscoll said.

Soup kitchens and senior meal programs also are seeing a spike in clients.

On Thursday, the Soup Kitchen in Provincetown had 85 guests, "about 15 to 20 more than this time last year," said kitchen manager Dave Schermacher.

Some elderly people who used to dine at local councils on aging a couple times a week now attend meal programs Monday through Friday, said Ellen McDonough of the Elder Services of the Cape and Islands.

"We do feel some of it is definitely the economy," she said.

The recession set off a big jump in clientele last year, Swain said.

According to a U.S. Agricultural Department survey, nearly 15 percent of American households reported having food insecurity in 2008 — the highest rate since the agency began collecting data in 1995.

And the problem just keeps growing, Swain said.

Older clients who have lost their savings are coming in with friends from senior housing apartments, she said. Younger, working clients are seeking food to tide them over a period of lost wages from reduced hours in the construction and restaurant businesses.

"They're not getting the hours they used to, the tips they used to," Swain said.

Even tourist season — when seasonally employed people traditionally get full-time work — didn't stop demand, said Paul Kearney of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at Our Lady of the Cape Church in Brewster.

The society's food distribution program usually slows down during the summer, he said. This year was different, Kearney said: "It actually got busier."

The unemployment rate in the region was 7.7 percent in October, leading labor experts to say that while there are hints of good news, it may be too soon to conclude the economy is rebounding.

Plenty of Cape Codders are still feeling desperate, Driscoll said. She said the pantry is seeing an increase in non-related family members sharing a household to cut down on expenses.

People are moving into basements and spare bedrooms, she said.

Many of Ridgley's clients say they can't find jobs to replace the ones they lost in the recession.

They say, "I haven't been able to find work for a year. I can no longer collect unemployment benefits,'" she said. "Thank God we can feed them."

The food pantry's shelves recently swelled with donations from a Thanksgiving Day road race. Besides donations, food pantries rely on grants and organizations such as the Greater Boston Food Pantry to fill their larders.

Pickings were a little slim last week at the veterans' food pantry, which was out of frozen meat products, Johnson said.

She said she expects to get more this week: "We're always looking for food for veterans and their families."

Marsland worries about what will happen after the end of the holiday season, when many Cape Codders donate to their local food pantries.

The number of households using the Lower Cape Community Outreach Council's pantries went from 1,400 at the end of June 2008 to 1,950 by end of this June and continues to rise, he said.